We all scream for ice cream

With the confidence of 12 weeks at Le Cordon Bleu under my belt, I felt the need to experiment a little on my own.  When my very generous friend Bobbi brought over a ton of gorgeous fresh produce, I felt the need to put it to good use. But having just made a fruit tart for my practical on Saturday, I was all tarted-out.  As the once beautifully yellow bananas were starting develop brown spots, they beckoned me to hurry up and bake something.  I thought about the obvious choice, banana nut bread, but to be honest, I needed a little break from all the baked goods.  I then turned to my fabulous ice cream cookbook, "The Perfect Scoop," by David Lebowitz and found so many delicious recipes.  Inspired, I went out and bought a bunch of liqueurs with which to flavor my ice creams.  Frankly, I felt the grocery store clerk was a little judgemental when I came to the checkstand with limoncello, Chambord, kahlua, coconut rum ( I already had both light and dark rum at home), and grand marnier (I had just run out).  I returned home fully armed and ready to start.  First off, roasted banana ice cream.  The recipe calls for cutting the banana into slices and roasting in the oven with brown sugar and butter, but I felt that rum was indicated here.  But I was uncertain whether dark rum or coconut rum would be more appropriate.  So I made one batch of each.  Unfortunately, the time of 40 minutes that the recipe called for turned out to be too much for my little bananas, and I burnt the ones with the dark rum.  No worries, I took out the coconut rum batch of bananas which I had put it in 10 minutes after the dark rum batch, after a total roasting of 30 minutes at 400 degrees farenheit - and they were perfect. (After 15 minutes I had stirred them up to ensure even cooking). Since I couldn't figure out how to turn on my new food processor (I will have to have my cousin Christopher to figure it out for me), I put the bananas in the blender with the rest of the ingredients and pureed until smooth.  I then poured it through a fine mesh strainer into my Kitchenaid ice cream attachment and 15 minutes later - voila!  I don't want to be one of those people, but let's just say, it was so good, that I gave a pint of it to my friend Breana, and two hours later it was all gone.  But don't worry, I have another pint in the fridge.  In addition, I took all the left-over berries I had from making my fruit tart on Saturday (see Elena, I'm not wasting them) and covered them with sugar and grand marnier overnight.  Adding a squirt lemon juice, a quick puree, and again through the strainer and subsequent ice cream attachment, I made the most delish berry sorbet, that unfortunately I ate the entire pint of last night.  Mmmmmmm.  The moral of the story - is that with very little time and preparation, you can make an amazing frozen treat and use up all your fruit that would otherwise go to waste.  Thank you, David Lebowitz.  You are my new hero!